Sunday morning's fatal derailment of a Metro-North commuter train on one of the busiest, post-Thanksgiving travel days proved chaotic for those trying to get to Manhattan from the Lower Hudson Valley and left some dreading their coming weekday commute.

The accident, near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, forced service on the Hudson Line and Amtrak's Empire Line to be suspended. With no trains running between Tarrytown and Grand Central Terminal, Metro-North was providing bus service between Tarrytown and the White Plains station, so people could take the Harlem Line into Manhattan.

"It was fine today, but I think the regular commute could be a nightmare," said Bert Schmitt, 45, who was waiting for Sunday's 12:05 p.m. train to Grand Central from the White Plains station. Schmitt and his wife, Valerie, were meeting her parents for dinner, having missed them on Thanksgiving. The couple took a train from Croton to Tarrytown, then the bus to White Plains.

An insurance broker, Schmitt said he was considering driving to Manhattan until the Hudson Line was back in service.

"Even if they add more trains from White Plains, getting to the city will add an hour or so to my commute," he said.

At the Croton-Harmon station, which also services Amtrak, stranded college students staked out electrical outlets to charge their phones and laptops.

Claire Johanson, a sophomore at SUNY Geneseo, was hoping to return to Rochester from her Thanksgiving break at her home in Yorktown. By noon, she'd given up and was waiting for her parents to pick her up and drive her back to school.

“This is difficult, but I just feel so blessed. It's nothing compared to what the families of the people on the derailed train must be going through.”

Kelly Kadin, mother of Ally Kadin, a freshman at Nazareth College

Erin McCane, a freshman at Temple University in Philadelphia, had caught a 5 a.m. Amtrak train from her home in Albany. She'd planned to get to Penn Station and board another Amtrak train to Philadelphia. The Albany train was stopped in Croton, and now she was waiting for her father to drive from Albany and take her into New York.

"I'm trying to be productive, but I'm pretty tired," she said, sitting on the floor, studying schoolwork on her laptop.

Alexine McCalman, a junior at SUNY Albany, arrived at the station from Peekskill with her father, Clement McCalman, who was hoping to catch a Metro-North train to his job in New York City. Both were stranded. An Amtrak conductor said the 12:03 p.m. to Albany would not make its run, and that he could not guarantee that Alexine would be given a seat on a later train, should one get through, as all the New York- to-Albany seats were sold out for the day.

She was going to wait it out. "I've got plenty of studying to do," she said.

Audrey Shuler came from his home in Beacon to the Croton station to seek information, in person, about his son, Kerry Shuler, 51, whom he believed was a passenger on the derailed Poughkeepsie train. None of the family could reach his cell phone, which his father said he was "religious" about carrying.

"I hope to God his missed that train," the elder Shuler said.

An information clerk gave him a number to call, but he was too shaken to dial it and was waiting for another son, who was driving from Garrision, to meet him at Croton. A short time later he was overjoyed to learn that Kerry Shuler had indeed missed the early train and had taken the next one, and was safe at home in Brooklyn.

In Tarrytown, hundreds of travelers heading north were brought by buses to the station, while those traveling south boarded buses to Grand Central Terminal or to White Plains, where they could continue to New York on the Harlem Line.

Despite the inconvenience, many riders took the delays in stride.

"I commute every day. She commutes every day," said Matt Gugel , 29, of Monroe, who was headed north with his wife, Desirae, after a weekend in Manhattan to celebrate her 29th birthday. "So, if you have a bad attitude, you're not going to survive."

The couple ended up riding a Harlem Line train to the North White Plains station where, weary of waiting, they paid a man with a van $5 each to transport them to the Tarrytown depot. From there, they were picked up by a relative who drove them home.

"Unfortunately, it was a pathetic situation for people on the train," Desirae Gugel said. "At least we're here and we're alright."

Stephanie Lupoli of Queens said she boarded a southbound train in Hudson in Columbia County at 6:43 a.m. after a Thanksgiving weekend with family in Catskill. Lupoli, 33, said passengers were forced to get off in Croton-Harmon due to a "rail disruption." After waiting several hours she boarded a train to Tarrytown, where many boarded buses headed for Grand Central Terminal. Lupoli, however, waited for a friend to pick her up and drive her home.

"It was just a big change of plans," she said. "It was a real inconvenience, but I was real thankful I wasn't on that train. It's real. It happened."

Jenny Wang, 21, of Wallingford, Conn., said she spent the weekend at The Castle in Tarrytown, a treat from her boyfriend. She planned to board a shuttle bus to Grand Central so she could board a northbound New Haven Line train to get home. The morning crash, she said, would be on her mind.

"I'm actually kind of concerned," Wang said. "It'll be in the back of my mind. But there's actually nothing I can do about it."

Westchester County Executive Robert Astorino, who arrived at the Bronx crash scene shortly after 11 a.m., told told The Westchester Journal News that he wasn't sure when normal train service would resume.

"Probably, best case scenario is they won't be back to normal on the line at least, I think, through Wednesday," he said.

Nonetheless, he added, commuters are resilient and will figure out alternative routes.